See who is being killed, not where killings are happening:

Mumbai, Sep 9 (PTI) With questions being raised about the law and order situation in Congress-ruled Karnataka following journalist Gauri Lankeshs killing, senior Congress leader P Chidambaram today said what is more relevant is who is being targeted.

"Congress may be in government, another party may be in government. (But) People who are being killed are people speaking against religious bigotry, majoritarianism, superstition, religious intolerance. That is the point," he told reporters here.

"Please dont miss the point. You are missing the forest for the trees," he said, answering a slew of questions on the role of the Congress government in Karanataka, which earlier saw the killing of Kannada scholar M M Kalburgi.

Chidambaram acknowledged the Karnataka governments failure to find those who killed Kalburgi more than two years after his assassination.

He, however, said investigation was progressing in the killings of CPI leader Govind Pansare and rationalist Narendra Dabholkar, with the suspected role of right wing Sanatan Sanstha coming under the scanner.

"I think the government of Karnataka must quickly investigate the (Lankesh) case, find the culprits and bring them to justice and the court must quicken the process of trial and pronounce the verdict. That is the only way in which we can restore confidence that people who have a different view will not be killed in this country," he said.

Chidambaram agreed with the concern expressed by celebrated music director A R Rahman over the killing, and said this is not the India which the founding fathers had dreamt of.

He defended Congress vice president Rahul Gandhis statement that anybody who spoke against the ideology of the BJP and RSS was "pressured, beaten, attacked and even killed".

"He (Rahul) did not say so-and-so killed. His point was that people who speak against extremist, right wing ideology are under threat," Chidambaram said.

He, however, refused to answer questions on his senior party colleague Digvijay Singhs controversial re-tweets about Prime Minister Narendra Modi, saying he does not follow social media.

On the recent deaths of children in Uttar Pradesh hospitals, he said, "This is the worst publicity India can get."

Even though his party suffered a string of poll reverses, Chidambaram said it should not be written off, but did not answer the question about whether Rahul Gandhi should be made the Congress president. PTI ND AA VT KRK SK

This is unedited, unformatted feed from the Press Trust of India wire.

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